Fellowship Focus: Elevating Pediatric Medication Safety Through Data, AI, and Collaboration

Pharmacy Times® interviewed Diego Lara, MD, chief quality and safety officer at Ochsner Children's Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Johlee S. Odinet, PharmD, BCPS, CPPS, system medication safety manager at Ochsner Health in New Orleans, Louisiana, about a new fellowship at Ochsner Children’s Hospital in partnership with Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP). The fellowship will focus on key competencies to enhance pediatric medication safety, including policy development, data analytics, and quality improvement.

Lara and Odinet explain that fellows will integrate national medication safety strategies into daily practice, contribute to system-wide safety enhancements, and develop tools like safety dashboards and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The program emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration and offers opportunities for national engagement, including ISMP publications. Ultimately, the fellowship aims to hardwire sustainable improvements and serve as a replicable model for other children’s hospitals.

For additional information and to apply for the new fellowship, visit Safe Medication Management Fellowships.

Diego Lara, MD, is chief quality and safety officer at Ochsner Children's Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Pharmacy Times: What specific skills or competencies will the fellowship focus on to advance medication safety in pediatric care?

Diego Lara, MD: This shared fellowship program will target 7 key competency areas surrounding medication safety: pharmacy operations, policy development and implementation, data analytics, academic education and training, incident reporting and investigation, advocacy, and quality improvement. We will work on traditional quality improvement strategies such as utilizing run/control charts, Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles, root cause analysis, etc, while also introducing newer concepts in safety science, such as proactive safety.

Pharmacy Times: How will the fellowship integrate ISMP’s national medication safety strategies into daily clinical practice at Ochsner Children’s Hospital?

Lara: Our fellow will incorporate ISMP’s targeted medication safety best practices for Hospitals across the Ochsner Health organization to streamline and standardize care for our most vulnerable population. We also aim for them to participate in monitoring national medication error reporting programs to incorporate prospective guidance as we build out a new home for Ochsner Children’s Hospital in New Orleans.

Johlee S. Odinet, PharmD, BCPS, CPPS, is a system medication safety manager at Ochsner Health in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Pharmacy Times: What kind of projects or deliverables are expected from fellows during their year-long program?

Johlee S. Odinet, PharmD, BCPS, CPPS: The year will be full of fun and innovative analysis and implementation. One of our primary goals is to develop a dashboard on the current state of pediatric medication safety at Ochsner Children’s Hospital and recommendations for improvement. We will also focus on development and implementation of new safety tools, like the use of gravimentric equipment and AI tools.

Pharmacy Times: How will this fellowship influence Ochsner’s broader medication safety protocols or policies?

Odinet: We are always looking for ways to hardwire consistent, quality care in everything we do for our patients. Ochsner Children’s Hospital will serve as a creative, questioning atmosphere where we constantly ask “Why?” and “How could we do this better?” If best practices emerges from this work, we will scale and scope a practice change across our network to ensure consistency in care.

Pharmacy Times: Is the fellowship open to early-career pharmacists, or is prior experience in medication safety required?

Odinet: Some experience in medication safety would be helpful, but mainly we are looking for a pediatric-trained pharmacist with a desire to work and learn with a dedicated team.

Pharmacy Times: Will fellows have opportunities to contribute to ISMP publications or national safety initiatives?

Odinet: Yes, of course!

A pediatric patient with health care professional. Image Credit: © Bonsales - stock.adobe.com

Pharmacy Times: How will interdisciplinary collaboration (eg, with nurses, physicians, and IT) be incorporated into the fellowship training?

Lara: This fellow will work directly with the chief quality officer of Ochsner Children's, who is a pediatric cardiologist by training. The pediatric quality team is made up of physicians, nurses, and pharmacists who work closely with our IT team to hardwire solutions. We also expect to provide our fellow to gain valuable experience through networking with pharmaceutical, healthcare, legislative, and regulatory communities.

Pharmacy Times: Could this model be replicated at other children’s hospitals or health systems in the future?

Lara: Absolutely. The goal is for this to become a model for future training at Ochsner Children's as well as many other children's hospitals. We hope to provide the perfect marriage of medication safety theory and hands-on specialty experience in pediatric care.

Pharmacy Times: How will the program ensure sustainability and continuity of improvements in medication safety once the fellowship ends?

Lara: The goal is to help the Ochsner Children’s Hospital quality team hardwire many of these improvements into our system to make them part of our continuous quality improvement process. Overall, we hope the work of this fellow also helps us justify expansion of our medication safety team.